This week we celebrate the end of Summer and the beginning of Autumn while pondering the journey of motherhood.
Read all the Large Family Homeschool Life posts!
Last week was just too busy to sit down and write about it! Little Mercy had her yearly eye appointment and all is well – no real changes and the lasering that keeps her retinas from detaching is holding steady!
Read more about Mercy’s condition (Pierre Robin Sequence & Stickler Syndrome):
We also visited friends, went paddle boarding, attending a comic book workshop, and did a million other “every day” things!
I am beginning to see how very different this season of my life is from the one before. The “little years” were full of monotonous tasks that had to be done again and again and again, with a few extras added in to really throw me for a loop!
10 years ago, I wrote about this season and how I was no longer going to call it a season because seasons end rather quickly, and I had been at that particular season for 18 years! As I read back over what I had written all those years ago (which don’t feel all that long ago!), I realize it is still applicable to where I am now…
“It’s not a “season” I’m in, it’s a voyage I’m on.”
A voyage is often very long, and rarely can you see the place you will land until you are nearly there. A voyage often involves hard work and stormy seas. Sometimes a voyage is very lonely and you are weary.
And sometimes a voyage is peaceful and filled with beauty and wonderment. Sometimes you rest and relax and enjoy the sights along the way.
On a voyage, the journey is just as important as the destination because if you don’t stay engaged in the travel, you will become lost and aimless.
Yes, this is a voyage I’m on.
No longer will I comfort young moms with the words,
“It’s only for a season.”
No longer will I suggest that what they are living {what I am living} is a soon-it-will-be-over moment – something to be endured, something to live through.
No, I will tell them {and myself) this is a voyage. One filled with sights to be seen and moments to be lived, without a timeline to dictate my happiness. This voyage doesn’t have to be over soon in order for me to get back to the life I once had. This voyage is my life, and when the waters are rough, I work; and when the waters are still, I rest. Always sailing on…
So, with that…here was my voyage this week!
Monday was the only normal day of school this week. Normal means the kids got up and did their school work (paper school and computer school as they call it!), and then we had Morning Time at 10 am.
You can see our current Morning Time Routine here:
We are currently studying the Magna Carta and the reasons for it coming to be in medieval England, along with Marco Polo’s travels, and the Turkish conquest of Constantinople.
We watched videos on thatched roofs, Gothic Architecture, and also did a lesson in Music in Our Homeschool’s Middle Ages Music Appreciation.
I tried to start Robin Hood as our read-aloud, and decided it was just too much for us after all the reading we already do for history. I needed a more engaging read at the end of Morning Time, so I chose The Weeping Knight (which happens to be by an author I personally know!).
Micah (our 16 year old) has officially finished Economics and Grammar for Writers from Compass Classroom (more on that in a second), so he will now move on to his Foreign Language credit in American Sign Language.
Read my post on Economics and my post sharing my favorite ASL resources below:
A note on Grammar for Writers for all you high school parents…
I use this class to supplement our high schooler’s English credits, along with other resources. This class has been phenomenal in teaching diagramming and how to use words to get a point across while making it interesting and engaging. I feel like it really ties together all I’m trying to teach my children with WHY they need to learn to write well and HOW to do it.
Remember how our washer quit us shortly after returning from vacation early July? Well, it runs now, but it is still leaking and this weak we had a repairman out who said the bearings are bad and the repair will be around $1700. Thankfully, we have a home warranty for things like this, but the flip side of that is that we have to deal with the home warranty company and things often move at a snail’s pace. We are getting a new washer through them, but who knows when.
A quick word on our washer. We own a Fisher & Paykel and I’ve raved about it over the 10 years we’ve owned it because it NEVER had issues…until it did. Because it is from a New Zealand company, finding someone to work on them here in the States is not simple. So, we are hoping our home warranty company will offer a Speed Queen as a replacement option. I’d love to hear your thoughts!
On Tuesday, I took 6 kids and my mom to my sister’s house to swim. My sister lives about an hour away from us and right across the street from a community pool. It was unseasonably chilly, but after not being able to swim long due to a storm rolling in last time we were there, the kids were determined to swim despite the cooler temps.
That evening, I went paddle boarding with friends. We usually go 3-4 miles and it’s a great time! I am so thankful I started doing this last summer! Below is the board and pump I own:
FBSPORT 11′ Premium Stand Up Paddle Board
Tuomico 20PSI High Pressure SUP Electric Air Pump
The next morning, I took the boys with me to a neighboring city to hang out with friends. They played airsoft and card games and the mom and I chatted as we always do. We’ve been friends since our 14 year old’s were babies and we hung out in the nursery together. Her youngest and my 2nd youngest were born only days apart.
One of our discussions this time was about helping kids make healthy food choices without overstressing a number on the scale or making food and meal times stressful (something I have struggled with nearly all my life due to how my family approached food and weight). One thing she said really resonated with me…teach them to steward their temple. I’ve been rolling that around my head ever since. So simple, yet so profound.
Wednesday night and Thursday morning, we managed to squeeze in a bit more school. As I’ve said before, I am trying to get this unit of Tapestry of Grace finished so we can have a nice long Holiday Homeschooling season.
Next week, I’ll be getting out my Holiday Homeschool Planners and begin writing down all the things we want to do during Autumn School and Christmas School. You can get these planners below:
Holiday Homeschool Pack – Thanksgiving & Christmas
Our 2 most popular Holiday Homeschool Planner together in one download! Plan a memorable Thanksgiving and Christmas season with this holiday homeschool pack! Create beautiful memories and a wonderful keepsake for years to come!
On Friday, we did our usual Home Blessing chores. We always start by tidying up and putting everything from the previous week back in its place. We tidy up every day, but I let the kids leave out things like projects and larger groupings of toys (i.e. painting projects, train tracks, Littlest Pet Shop, etc) until Friday clean up. It’s a RESET to our home for the weekend, and ALWAYS welcome!
Once we get things tidied up, the kids set off to do their individual chores and I usually do a decluttering project and water the plants. I found this little guy hanging onto one of them!
This week’s decluttering project was the pantry in the kitchen. It needed to be sorted and rearranged and some things used up and thrown out. It looked so much better when I was finished!
That afternoon, I took the 20 year old to Sam’s so we could stock up on a few things and also buy paper goods for her wedding. We got plates, napkins, cups, and flatware. I also bought a few things to put together for supper so I wouldn’t have to cook.
Speaking of supper, here was our menu for the week:
Monday – Chicken Fried Rice.
Our favorite recipe for this is from Trim Healthy Table and uses a mix of rice and cauliflower rice.
Tuesday – We had Tacos and Taco Salad and Triple Chocolate Brownies with Cream Cheese Frosting at my sister’s for lunch, so we snacked for supper that night.
Wednesday – Dublin Coddle and Rhubarb Crisp.
I started making Coddle when I heard it mentioned on a show I was watching. It’s quite tasty!
The rhubarb for the crisp came from the rhubarb that grows up at our mountain cabin. We harvest it around July 4th (9500 foot elevation makes everything MUCH later in season!) and I dice it and freeze it to bring home and use throughout the year. I bag them in 6 cup increments because that’s the most common amount I need for the different recipes I make with it.
Get my Rhubarb Custard Pie Recipe!
and my Mom’s Rhubarb Jam Recipe!
Thursday – Grilled Mac & Cheese Sandwiches & Homemade Tomato Soup
Thursday nights are Special Nights here, and it was the 8 year old’s turn. She requested mac & cheese and lemonade and when I told her I would be making it with our dinner of grilled cheese and tomato soup, she asked me to make some grilled cheeses that had the mac & cheese inside it! They were surprisingly good!
Friday – Dinner from Sam’s Club
We like the pasta and kale salad and the shrimp ceviche. We also cooked up some mozzarella sticks in the air fryer.
I don’t usually share what we eat on into the weekend (often because I keep it pretty low key with very little cooking most weekends), but this weekend was special! So, here goes…
Saturday – Homemade Ramen Bowls
Ok, that wasn’t the special part of Saturday. The special part was going apple picking!
It was a lovely day! There were 13 of us able to make it out to the orchard. We rode on a hayride out to the trees, picked a 1/2 bushel of Jonathans, ate apple pie nachos and drank apple slushes and took home 3 dozen apple cider donuts!
Sunday – End of Summer Picnic
For many years now, we’ve celebrated the end of Summer with a picnic. We eat summer-ish foods out on the lawn and enjoy saying goodbye to the hot weather (even though it is usually still quite sweltering on into September around here!). Below was this year’s menu:
- Fried Chicken
- Pasta Salad (made by my nephew’s wife)
- Dill Pickle Salad
- Watermelon
- Rull Kuka (German Mennonite salty bread that is ALWAYS eaten with watermelon)
- Watermelon Rind Pickles
- Ice Cream Sandwiches and Bars
- Lemonade (the recipe for our homemade lemonade is in THIS POST)
Several years ago, we would combine our End of Summer Picnic with our Back to School festivities, but things change and we no longer do a Back to School party.
Read about our very first Back to Homeschool Party!
Monday – Fall Decorating Party
Not only do I not usually include the weekend in these posts, I NEVER include the following Monday! (ha!). But, again…special day. And a holiday. And I won’t be doing a Large Family Homeschool Life post this week, so there!
We always decorate for Fall sometime during Labor Day Weekend. We follow meteorological seasons, so Autumn includes September, October, & November. It is our favorite season for sure, and this year, we decided to make decorating for it a full blown PAR-TAY!
PIC
Much like our End of Summer Picnic is all about Summer foods, the Fall Decorating Party is all about Autumn foods!
I made Autumn Pancakes for breakfast…
and for dinner we had:
Ty had been gone again all this week getting soldiers ready to deploy so he missed a lot of the festivities. He was supposed to be here, but plans changed, so as all good military wives do, I just kept on truckin’ and kept all the plans in place.
Ty was able to join us Monday afternoon for decorating. He helped me hang these new lighted leaf garlands on the front porch…
We’ll be adding pumpkins and other decorations as the season progresses.
We also decorated inside the house. My favorite decor is always the fireplace mantel. Every year, we do something a little bit different. This is this year’s design:
Have a blessed week!
Thia says
So much good stuff here, Amy! I’ll be back to look at food stuff. Thankful for Mercy’s good eye report. Family of 6 here and I LOVE our Speed Queen. I always recommend when someone I know is looking at washers.
Tarynkay says
Hmmm… I like your take on being on a voyage versus enduring a season. But when I was a new mom and older women would say that, I always took that to mean that this was a fleeting time and there are difficult things and those will soon be replaced by different difficult things, but I needed to enjoy this season while I was in it. Kind of like hey, it’s summer right now and this sticky heat is about to make me lose my testimony, but don’t forget to go swimming and eat popsicles while we can. This has helped me to focus on the really beautiful parts of each stage.
Emily Garrett says
That’s how I always taken that comment as well! Like the country song says, “You’re going to miss this. You’re going to want this back. You’re going to wish these days didn’t go by so fast.”
Amy says
See, and I always felt like they were saying “this is just a season” – as in, it will soon be over with no mention of actually enjoying it. More like “enduring it.”
Tarynkay says
It depends a lot on the context of when it’s said. “This is such a short season!” Spoken cheerily when you are covered in spit-up is not particularly encouraging, of course. But no words really are in that moment. My SMIL sang “you’re gonna miss this” at me right after she gave my then 3 year old a particularly loud and high pitched train whistle. I threw it away after she left. For the record, I do miss the 3 year old (now 13). I do NOT miss that stupid whistle and I have never regretted throwing it away!
Molly says
I love my Speed Queen washer and dryer! Family of 11 at home, so I use it hard every day! Speed Queen also has a great warranty!
Rebecca says
Peep the puppy looking out the door on the porch pic 😆. Definitely gonna visit the beautiful chicken pot pie recipe. I follow meteorological seasons as well, we started that over 25 years ago, when we began our home school journey, just made it easy and each season got fair recognition.
My home schooling journey ended in May with my daughter graduating but I’ve been so delighted to see her coming to me, having me read things she’s written or read a couple books with her. Currently reading one of her science books with her, she is taking 2 sciences to complete her freshman year this semester and this book is SO WORDY, she’s always loved being read to and that’s the way she absorbs info better, and we are breaking the text down to understandable bullet points. Also reading aloud a worldview book with her that’s been assigned. Needless to say, I am so enjoying this! I have always looked at the season/journey as how short a time I have. Sometimes (weather) seasons seem to last very long, but you know it will end. I have always tried to find the fun parts of any season…sometimes that’s been pretty hard but it never comes to stay, it comes to pass.
Rebecca says
Also, I have a rhubarb plant that I’ve managed to keep alive, here in the South! How do I know when and how to harvest it?
Sarah Trstenjak says
I loved this post! How many strands of the leaf garland did you need for the porch and post picture you showed? It’s beautiful!
Amy says
Thank you! I used 3 of those garlands.
Diana says
I love the idea of a voyage. The “season” thing has bugged me for years. Considering that humans only live 60-80-100 years (if we’re blessed!), saying that a several-decades-long period is “just a season” is a real frustration. The concept of the voyage is much better.
These posts are the best. Thank you!